New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1887-02-11
NEW PUBLICATIONS.
r,,, p,cr or A,rRICAN LETTERS.

TIE RISE OF AMERICAN lei EMS
AMERICAN LrrERaTuks; Tsoaehs rs Cn.Klxs f.
t,,cusnpsoY syc, PIP Xxx, 49, IT, +. PUTNAM
Sons
The work Of which Professor Richardson no"
nfrers us the fist instament is defined as an "o
tempt TO Judge our literature by the same staho-
arcs and In the same perspective which we apply
TO the work of the older nations. Neither ! a.
triotism nor antiquarian curiosity ought any longer
to affect our estimate of the books worth studying
hut we should begin to apply strict analytical
criticism to our literary celebrities: to determine
which Of them have really succeeded and why :
ond ito trace the relation between cause ana ci'
feet, between the Saxon mind In England ana 'i'e
Saxon mind I'm America" In an examination Vi
this kind while environment has TO De careiuiS
considered the conditions OF new country are io'
TO be pleaded as q satisfactory excuse ior inioiio
work. IL the hard pioneer life was IN many ~
spects unfayorable to literary growth our 'nei
lectual development has, on the other haiiu De'H
powerfully stimulated by the spirit OF ireeuon'
which is the key to all American progress IL Is
fnm the point of view Of the emancipation Of the
mind that Professor Richardson surveys the whole
course of letters in this country. The hberatlng
influence was really as potent among the PtiritanS
as among the modern Transcendentalists and Uni
tarisns for the tyrannical theoCracy OF Massa-
chlsctts Bay rested, in the last analysis, upon
principle of individualism which was sure to burst
all restraints Of intolerance. Amerlcansm IN
literature is therefore something higher than the
indefinable mixture Of the rude, piquant gro
tesque, unusual, "racy" which many European
readers expect Of US and Of writers try to
furnish it is recognized as distinct habit OF
mind. Professor Richardson is guided in his gen
eral judgments by this principle Of discrimination
and he is often exceedingly happy in tho application
of the test to individual writers.
From what we have said of his scheme it win
be plain why the catalogue of authors in his review
is a brief one. In the colonial period especially
the few figures which he has thought worth pre-
serving stand out with unwonted distinctness on
their solitary pedestals. The earliest chapters ore
shortened by the exclusion of some writers who
made brief visits to America and composed books
of history, adventure description, but never had
q home here. The treatment Of such cases is
necessarily somewhat arbitrary John Smith for
example is admitted but not William Strachcy
The choice, however, is generally reasonable, and
though we miss Strachcy's famous shipwreck, the
sacrifices on the whole are such as we can well
bear. The theological writers of the seventeenth
and eighteenth centuries are still ruthlessly
scattered yet when we have surveyed John Cot
ton the Mathcrs, Jonathan Edwards, John Wool
man and one or two others we have perhaps seen
greater rersonages Professor Richardson gives a
good account. His pages on the Mathers are fun
and lively. His criticism of Jonathan Edwards
is far less satisfactory, for he dismssos with only
q passing and careless mention the renowned ana
terrible imaginings Of that divine the wrath
Of God and the torments of the sinner, just cava
licrly Professor Tyler, in his History OF
American Literature" passed over the treatise Of
Edwards on Freedom Of Will" By reading both
Richardson and Tyler we get an excellent idea
of Edwards, but not by reading either alone. An
interesting chapter Benjamin Franklin may be
considered an introduction to the subject Of Po-
litical Literature, in which Professor Richardson
seems at home in the midst of o great wealth Of
material. Here the temptation TO include too
much is exceptionally strong but our author exer-
cises rigid and perhaps extreme reserve. He
might well have done more with John Quincy
Adams, he is not just to Hamilton. he treats
Thomas Panic with an uncritica contempt. What
ever may be the falacies of the lastnamed writer.
he was ono of the strongest politicoterary forces
produced in this country and one OF the most
striking phenomena Of American development
With Washington Irving, to whom an entire
chapter is devoted, come to the beginnings Of
pure literature in this country and here all at
once is exhibited an inconvenience of our authors
plan. He reserves poetry and fiction for treat
menu IN q second volume, WHICH ne expects 10
publish in 1888. This might do well enough for a
history of literature prepared the biographical
system; but it is impossible TO trace the growth
Of American letters when such a broad artificial
separation is made in the elements of the subject
Irving was not, as he appears to be in this volume
an isolated phenomenon in the midst OF a desert Of
politics and polemics he was an early but not the
earliest product OF an Important change in lit
erary tastes and aspirations. Very few of his
companions and predecessors are now read but
authors who have passed out Of date arc often his
torically important In the work of the Irving
era and some years preceding it American letters
began to develop a quality Of Imagination as well
as q new sense Of proprety and culture and weak
as most OF their work was. its source and char
acter must be examined by the philosophical his
torian precisely because it was a beginning. Yet
Professor Richardson is obliged to postpone its
consideration because nearly all Of it happens TO
belong to his second volume The difficulty re-
ours again and again from this time on Poetry
and fiction do not flow from separate springs Of
their own they are part Of the whole broad
course OF our intellectual activity, starting from
the same sources as the other forms OF expression
carrying the same thought and directed by the
same influences. The sub title Of Professor Rich
ardson's first volume, therefore, 1.-THE Develop.
Aient OF American Thought" really fits only the
nrst haI OF IT, lie traces the development of
American thought very wen through the early
controversial and political periods but after the
appearance OF American imaginative literature his
method allows him to do little than trace the
succession Of authors without showing the general
condition or tendency of letters at any particular
time.
Nor is this the only objection to the division OF
subjects. How can Irving be properly criticised
when fiction is divided from the essay the "TaIcs
Of Traveller put of till a year or SO after We
have reviewed 1.-The Sketch Boo1"p What is to
be done with Emerson when the poet and the es.
sayist are remanded to different volumes In
these two conspicuous cases Professor Richardson
has forced O martial solution by breaking his rlo